


Lost and Found

by paperclipbutterfly



Series: Non-Canon Black Jack One-Shots [5]
Category: Black Jack Original Comics, Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Angst, But really more angst than usual for these two, Gen, Heavily Implied Child Abuse, Heavily implied trafficking, Jack Savage being a badass bun, Missions, Professional Jack is professional, Raid turned rescue mission, You Have Been Warned, as always, very little fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 23:42:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15130310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperclipbutterfly/pseuds/paperclipbutterfly
Summary: A routine raid of an underground drug ring's base of operations takes a bad turn when Agents Jack Savage and Cynthia Walker find something they didn't expect to find.





	Lost and Found

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aoimotion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aoimotion/gifts).



> In which a writer who is both curious and impatient allows her mind to go wandering. Always a mistake. Caution ahead: very little fluff to be found here. If you like your fanfics with lots of cream and sugar, turn back right now, because this is a much darker roast.
> 
> It is my firm belief that neither Jack Savage nor Cynthia Walker tolerate to any degree mammals who hurt children. With this headcanon in mind, have a little story.
> 
> As always, the OCs here belong to aoimotion and I have her permission to write them.

G.S.D., like all intelligence agencies, took great pride in all the things that they knew. They made it a point to know as much as they could regarding as many things as they knew about. They were only as good as their information, after all. Be that as it may, it was still impossible for them to know everything.

This fact was of no comfort to Agent Cynthia Walker as she stood gaping in a small room of the dilapidated dwelling they had just forced their way into.

They knew about the drugs. They knew about the guns and the money laundering. They knew all about the murders.

They didn’t know about the girls.

Cynthia’s flashlight lit up their enormous, terror-filled eyes into shining moons as it played over them. Three little bodies huddled together, grasping at each other in the corner of a room reeking of filth and decay. Low, whimpering voices pleaded with her, a different language for each: a snow leopard, red panda, and gazelle. Young and beautiful. Thin and dirty.

Afraid.

“Agents Savage and Walker to Command.” Jack spoke in somber, steady tones into his comm, jolting Cynthia from her reverie. He came alongside her and lowered his weapon away from the children before them. “Be advised civilians present. Three female minors. Appear uninjured, requesting dispatch medical support. Over.”

The small speaker in her ear buzzed some response that she paid no attention to as the word _uninjured_ echoed around in her skull _._ It threatened to light the fuel in her bloodstream into a blazing firestorm, _what the hell would he know._ How could he know, know the kind of hurt they might have inside, in their minds, in their hearts, that would fester and rankle and chafe at every future moment of their lives, how could he _know_ …

_Creeeeeeeak!_

Cynthia’s tunnel vision was interrupted by a furtive movement and jarring groan of floorboards to her right, and she was off like a shot after it. Jack’s stern voice barked orders to the other agents that had followed up behind them before he also gave chase. She felt his presence nipping at her heels.

“Walker, stand down!”

The command didn’t register, did nothing to slow her legs or lower her gun. Did nothing to temper the fire coursing through her veins as they bolted into the open kitchen. Her target came fully into view, the warthog lackey that they had expected to find in this place.

Cynthia would see that boar fill a body bag before she let him leave this house.

She raised her weapon, prepared for the recoil. “Stop, or I’ll…!”

The sentence was cut short as a flurry of movement distracted and then disarmed her. From below, quick as only a hare can be, Jack leapt up and kicked the gun from between her paws. He snatched it from the air with lightning fast reflexes, and even before he’d landed he threw it boomerang style into the warthog’s head when he paused to get the door open. It clocked him with enough force to knock him forward into the jamb. He spun around in a stupefied daze before falling forward— _WHUMP!_ —to the tile floor, out cold.

Jack continued through his take-down while Cynthia stood both incensed and slightly dumbfounded. He zip-tied the boar’s hooves and feet together, checked that he was still breathing, and then grabbed the firearm-turned-projectile with an exasperated oath. Before she knew what was happening, Jack seized hold of her paw and dragged her full tilt out the now open door.

“Agents Savage and Walker to Command. In pursuit of possible secondary suspect. All agents maintain your positions and await further instruction. Over.”

The lie was spoken without hesitation, crisp and clear, unapologetic, as easily as breathing. Cynthia felt her blood boil at what she could only surmise was the great Jack Savage preparing to lecture her on her sub-par performance. That was not something that she was willing to suffer through right now.

When they skirted past the decrepit shed in the back of the property, Jack gave a sudden, sharp sidestep through the doorframe and yanked Cynthia inside with him. He didn’t say anything at first, but only emptied the ammunition from her firearm before holding it out to her.

She snatched the gun angrily out of his paws. “You have some _nerve_.”

“And you have sixty seconds to get a hold of yourself before I bench you.”

His words were cool and even, matter-of-fact, spoken without any discernable emotion, and yet his ice blue eyes were filled to the brim with something just approaching disapproval. Jack maintained his unwavering, scrutinizing gaze even as she averted her own eyes from it. She holstered the gun and turned her whole body away from him as she grasped her arms around herself.

“I had everything under control—”

“You did, did you?” Jack tilted his chin up and narrowed his eyes. “He was fleeing; you should have let him and he would have been caught in the nets in no time. Tell me why it looked like you were ready to _end_ him.”

She whirled back, hackles raised and tail bristling against the scolding tone, as though she were his petulant student. “And why not? Treacherous low-life like that—”

“Who we need to roll on his boss.” Jack gave an exasperated groan. “Damn it, Walker, this was in the briefing.”

A harsh laugh escaped from her lips. “Yes, an awful lot of intel in the briefing, wasn’t there? Every detail accounted for… except one.”

Jack raised his eyebrows, and then his ears sank behind him. “Oh. I see.”

“Do you?” Cynthia asked, her voice pitching as the glistening moon-eyes flashed through her mind. “Do you see? _Did you see_?”

He frowned. “Of course I did. I’m not blind.” He ran a paw over his wilted ears with a hissing exhale and shake of his head. “We didn’t know.”

“ _Why_ didn’t we know?!” she quietly exploded at him, stooping down to snarl the question right in his face. He didn’t even flinch. “Why did we know about _everything_ except what was most important? Why didn’t we know?” The last word fell broken from her mouth. Her lips trembled as she backed off, head bowed and ears folded flat. “Why didn’t I know?”

They stood in the quiet, the only sound ragged, uneven breaths. Cynthia’s shoulders shook, the fire inside extinguished as quickly as it had flared, leaving in its wake a chill that turned her stomach to a block of ice.

Jack came around her with slow, painstakingly careful movements, here a light touch against her arm, there a kind look up into her amber eyes. Old habit made her cringe within the embrace that he wrapped her in, but only at first. There was no malice in those arms, no danger in surrendering to them. Cynthia grasped her paws around him, relaxed into the moment, let it warm and melt the cold snap within.

“It’s going to be alright,” he murmured, his breath tickling at the fur just under her ear.

She huffed against his neck. “I’m not a child, Jack.”

“I know that. But you were, once.”

A long pause. “So were you.”

A short sigh. “Yes… so was I.”

Cynthia stiffened in the face of the unexpected acknowledgment. Their mutual recollection of a long-ago day, a day now so far behind them, that they had barely spoken of in all the years since. The day that he found her broken into a thousand jigsaw puzzle pieces in the snow. Even now so many bits were still missing. She didn’t know what they looked like, where they were, or if she wanted to find them again. Yet, every time the empty spaces collected to remind her of what was lost, somehow they took the shape of the boy soldier she’d found and weren’t quite so empty anymore.

“Listen, Cynthia, I need… I need you…” His fingers tensed, entwined themselves in the fabric of her shirt. “I need you to continue being the exceptional agent that you are. They’re counting on us.” Jack released her, and brought his paws up under her cheeks, cradled her face as he smiled a joyless smile. “We can’t fall apart now, can we? Then who will take care of them? _Hawkeye_?”

She barked a short laugh that hurt her chest. “Oh, dear God, no.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Jack drew his paws away and nodded at the opening of the shed. “Come on, then. Let’s take them away from here. Let’s get them home.”

Cynthia shook out her fur, cast away the emotional weightiness from her shoulders, and perked her ears. Once more her face assumed the semblance of the colleague, the agent, the professional, all ready to get back to work.

“Let’s.”

*****

Cynthia paused at the entrance of the house, again in the presence of the unmoving heap that lay between her and what was most important. She turned her nose up and walked around with even, certain steps; this thing was not worthy of her time or her attention. She would focus on those who were. Those who were counting on her, on her compassion, on her kindness… on her understanding.

“Walker.” She halted at the doorway that led back to the rooms, held by the sound of a voice that would surely issue her an order. “Send Hawkeye out. I’d have you take charge of the civilians from here. Understood?”

The corner of her mouth twitched. “Yes, sir, Agent Savage.”

“Good. See to them, then.”

She left. Jack sighed, and then glared down at the adversary that he had dropped like a sack of cement. The boar was still unconscious on the floor, mouth open and tongue lolling out of it, trussed up like a harmless parcel. But Jack knew better. He was horribly dangerous, barely a mammal anymore. This was an animal who didn’t deserve another breath, another heartbeat, the things that he had done, that they knew for a fact that he had done. And now… now there was one more thing that they knew of.

Swirling white flakes and bright, glowing amber lights flashed the back of his eyes.

Jack drew his gun.

“On the off chance you mistake my actions for mercy, let me make something perfectly clear.” He crouched next to the enormous head and pressed the steel muzzle against its temple. “The bullet in this gun is far more merciful than I am. Let the cosmic record show that I have set myself a personal goal. I will see you and your boss rot for the rest of your miserable lives in a place as close to Hell on earth as mammal-kind has ever come. That is a promise.”

The sound of padded footsteps on creaking floorboards approached, and Jack straightened up just as Agent Hawkeye ducked through the doorway to the kitchen.

The jaguar glared down at the hare. “You rang?” he asked, not even bothering to mask the contempt that was written all over his face.

“Keep here with the prisoner until the wagon arrives.” Jack holstered his gun and stepped past him dismissively. “You’re authorized to use any non-lethal method necessary to ensure he remains subdued.”

A low growl rumbled from the other agent, but before he could give the nasty retort that was percolating on his tongue, Jack put up his paw to halt it. “If you’re displeased with your assignment, I’ll offer you an alternative I think you’re well suited for. Perhaps you would prefer to sift through the rubbish bins instead?”

Hawkeye weighed the two options with a surly snarl before turning away to regard his new charge. Eventually, he said, “I’ll take it from here, Savage.”

“Yes, I had no doubt that you would.”

Jack left the kitchen and began assigning tasks to the other agents stationed throughout the property. Putting Hawkeye with the downed suspect was an invitation for trouble; the antagonistic jaguar would take any opportunity he could find to criticize Jack’s work, call him out on any possible oversight. Jack knew this very well, but at the moment… well, there were just more important things.

The house was soon a-bustle with activity, a convoluted dance of mammals twisting and turning past each other, a cacophony of snapping cameras and zipping evidence bags.

But the room that Agent Walker kept in with the girls they steered clear of, allowing her a still and almost tranquil atmosphere to work in. She spoke calm and gentle words in three languages (“Can you tell me your name? _Vashe imya? Nǐ de míngzì? Il tuo nome?_ ”), reassured them they were safe now, that they could take their time, that she would make sure they were well cared for. All the things that she knew they needed to hear. All the things she knew they wanted to hear. All these things and more she said, and then repeated, and then repeated again.

Agent Savage had his own work to attend to, but he took a few minutes to look in on Cynthia Walker with the lost children she was saving. He basked in her gentleness, her perfect patience, her careful consideration. Watched in silence as they drew near to her, reached for her, let her hold and soothe them, let her protect them.

Let her find them again.

It wasn’t really a time for smiling. It was a time for work, and for procedure, and for meticulous documentation of all the things they needed to know; a smile was just not welcome here in this place, so Jack didn’t wear one. He turned to leave them in her very capable paws instead and put the smile away for later. He knew just where to keep it, tucked between heartbeats and the memory of two children clasping paws, who somehow found each other amongst the falling snow.


End file.
